20 Years On From ‘Minority Report’, Are We Living In Spielberg’s Vision Of A Retail Future?

In preparing for the sci-fi movie “Minority Report” (released two decades ago this year), Steven Spielberg gathered a number of notable thinkers to “hang out for a weekend and talk about the future”.  At his “Idea Summit” in Santa Monica, participants brainstormed about a world bristling with technology, far into the future – originally 2080, but reframed in the final film as the year 2054.

Part of that vision centered on personalization in retail. In one famous scene, the Tom Cruise character strides through a mall as ads call out his name, recognize him via retinal scan and target messages directly at him. Later in a Gap store, a holographic store greeter enquires about shoppers’ previous purchases. It was at once compelling, but unsettling. As Spielberg himself noted in an interview with legendary film critic Roger Ebert, “the thrilling thing is, that will make us feel we’re part of the medium. The scary thing is, we’ll lose our right to privacy”.

So, have we arrived in Spielberg’s dystopian future? In many ways, yes, but in one important way, no.

From the perspective of technology, while Minority Report still looks largely futuristic, reality has overtaken film fantasy. The retinal scanners in the movie appear like bulky old-fashioned web cams. Today, facial recognition can be facilitated by front-facing cameras in our smartphones (and yes, facial recognition is different to retinal scanning, but it’s still about identifying an individual – or type of person – by their unique characteristics). Apple’s FaceID has led the way, and by 2025, ZDNet reports that billions of smartphone users globally will be using their faces to secure payments.

In retail stores, the technology is becoming more popular. Shoppers at Alibaba’s Hema supermarkets in China can pay by face. In the US, a company called PopID has had success offering face authentication at over 100 different restaurant and retail brands around college campuses in Southern California.

Personalization technology is already widespread when used on an anonymized level. A report released at this year’s NRF “Big Show” suggests that we are in the era of “The Store As A Medium”. Any surface in a physical location – from aisle ends to cooler doors  – can be enabled with AI to make a judgment call about a shopper who is looking at or approaching it. While being careful to protect privacy, once “dumb” displays can intelligently assess the type of shopper and adjust content, gauge their emotional state, and interact. While this technology has been around for a while, the publication states that “cameras, sensors, screens and data processing technology…(have) come down in price to the point at which even the smallest Mom and Pop store can afford (them).”

All that sounds in line with “Minority Report”, but the difference is that we are unlikely to get to the stage of displays or ads calling out customers by name or tracking them individually without their express permission. Shoppers won’t stand for it (the most oft-stated response is it “creeps me out”), and advocacy groups won’t allow it. (This New York Times article covers the subject well.)

Even in China, where facial recognition tech has been ubiquitous in both government and commercial sectors, new legislation has come in to protect consumer privacy. Laws or no laws, some enterprising individuals are taking matters into their own hands. In 2020, a man visiting a real estate expo in a Chinese city wore a motorcycle helmet to avoid detection.

The drive to personalize in-store experiences will certainly continue, however. Whether it’s by facial recognition or other biometrics, entry and payment by app like Amazon Go, or automatic number plate attribution in Starbucks drive-thru’s, we are rapidly approaching a stage where bricks-and-mortar stores will know as much or more about a shopper as online environments.

Overall, Spielberg nailed the direction, if not the precise destination. It would be fascinating to see what his brains trust would predict now for 20 years from today.